It apparently doesn’t matter that the UK is a major ally and Five Eyes partner of Australia. Nor does it matter that it is currently governed by a political party on the same ideological side, and with close links to, our own government. LNP senator James McGrath is happy to tip a bucket on Theresa May’s government. 

“It’s all going terribly well in the UK. #Brexit,” McGrath tweeted gleefully this morning about a Sun headline, as Donald Trump criticised May before meeting her in his controversial and fleeting visit to the UK. Fine stuff from an MP of a government currently screaming about foreign interference in Australia. Of course a different fate might await if McGrath criticised Trump. Turnbull last year suspended a junior PMO staffer who had the temerity to merely “like” an image of a t-shirt with “Tuck Frump” on it on social media.

Why would McGrath want to take pleasure from the travails of a Tory PM? Well, that would be because he’s a former employee of Boris Johnson, that elite multi-millionaire masquerading as a tribune of the British people, when he was London mayor. Johnson huffily brought his disastrous stint as foreign secretary to an end this week over Brexit.

Back in 2008, McGrath had to depart the service of Johnson when he was revealed to have said, in response to a question about whether Johnson’s election as mayor would prompt Caribbean migrants to leave, “well, let them go if they don’t like it here.” Johnson then claimed McGrath was no racist, but had had a “lapse of judgment”. So it’s understandable that McGrath still carries a torch for Johnson a decade later. But to the extent of taking pleasure from a Tory Prime Minister’s troubles? Lovely.